Read Time: 1 min 40 secs
Hey — Ryan To here.
In today’s edition:
Why your niche is more important than followers/views
Influencer marketing 101 (& how to make the most $ as a creator)
The brand formula for creators (key metrics)
Most creators pick a niche like this:
"What does my audience want?"
"What's trending right now?"
But seeing the brands side I’ve learned the dark secret…
The only thing that matters is how much brands are willing to spend for influencers in your niche
It’s not followers and it’s not views: it’s your niche
This is why niche selection is a business decision, not a creative one
So here’s 3 years of influencer marketing in one email…
Reverse Engineer Industry Spend ($)
The creators who get paid the most start by researching where the money is.
A finance creator & a lifestyle creator can have the exact same audience size, same engagement, but the finance creator will still get paid 5-10x more.
Research these 3 things:
How "hot" is the industry right now? Is the space actively spending on creator marketing, or pulling back? Finance, AI, and tech brands are in aggressive growth mode and competing for attention. More brands entering a space = more budgets = more deals.
How early is the niche? This one's underrated. Emerging categories like AI creative tools are exploding right now. When an industry is early, you get better rates, more creative freedom, and less competition.
How many brands are competing in the space? When 10 fintech apps are all trying to acquire the same customer, they're all bidding for creator partnerships. That competition drives your rates up.
But how do the economic works?
Key Metrics
It all comes down to two numbers: CPM and RPM.
CPM = what a brand pays per 1,000 views on a post
RPM = the revenue that brand generates per 1,000 views on a post
A brand spends $1,000 on a post that generates 1,000,000 views. That's a $1 CPM. If that same post drives $2,000 in revenue, that's a $2 RPM. The brand profited $1,000.
Every brand is running this math on you whether you know it or not.
If you want to increase your value to brands, focus on finding formats that create these outcomes for the list of brands you want to work with.
Competition
Your ‘special rates’ are based on every other creator they've worked with in your category.
And if you're in a niche where most creators charge $500 per post, that becomes your ceiling.
Start by assessing the barrier to entry in your niche.
The lower the barrier, the more saturated it gets, the faster your rates get driven down.
Like cooking / food creators: anyone with a phone and a kitchen can go viral.
How to figure out rates?
Talk to other creators. Not the ones with millions of followers. Talk to creators at your level or one step ahead.
Talk to talent managers. Talent managers negotiate deals across dozens of creators every week, they know your monetary value in and out.
How did you like today's newsletter?
Have a great day ❤️
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Ryan To
Creator (120K+)
@itsryanto
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